What did we learn at the filing deadline?
The Friday deadline for candidates to enter Santa Cruz County’s Nov. 5 general election brought its share of surprises.
From Congress and state senate down to the Santa Cruz Port District, 108 local seats up for election in November. Candidates running for more than half of those seats, 61, are doing so without a challenger. Without a competitive race, dozens of school board seats, and even two spots on the Watsonville City Council, have essentially been decided.
But the bigger story is the 10 seats up for election that have no candidates.
Now, maybe it doesn’t surprise you to hear that the Pajaro Dunes Geologic Hazard Abatement District has two seats open and only a single candidate on the ballot. But such is also the case for seats on the Santa Cruz County Board of Education and the Santa Cruz City Schools district board. There is an opening on each with no one filing to run for either.
School boards have had a difficult time this year attracting candidates for open seats. Of the 42 open school district seats in Santa Cruz County this year, only seven are contested, as in, there are more candidates than open seats. Twenty-nine of those seats have attracted a single candidate who will run unopposed, and six have no candidates at all.
As it stands right now, a lack of competition could mean that 48 total seats on boards and councils throughout the county could end up filled by appointment instead of election. That’s a loss for the democratic process.
There remains some hope. Santa Cruz County Clerk Tricia Webber says 33 of the races have received a filing deadline extension to Wednesday, Aug. 14, because the eligible incumbent candidate did not file for reelection. Twenty-two of those seats are currently un- or under-contested. They include the currently empty fields for trustee seats on the county and city boards of education, as well as a seat on the Pajaro Valley Health Care District.
Will anyone step up?
OF NOTE
Temperature rises on Rep. Jimmy Panetta: The congressman has been the target of multiple demonstrations and protests in Santa Cruz over the past month for his support of Israel. Panetta was besieged by shouting dissenters when he participated in a live reading of a Sinclair Lewis play in late July. Last week, a group of more mellow, older protesters organized a sit-in outside his district office in Santa Cruz. The group told me they didn’t expect to change the congressman’s mind, but said the demonstration was “part of the long game” in raising awareness about his positions and eventually voting Panetta out of office.
LOOKING AHEAD
Santa Cruz City Council returns: Following its July hiatus, the Santa Cruz City Council returns on Tuesday with two significant items. The first is a $140,000 contract to clear what staff describes as a growing homeless encampment deep in the Pogonip Nature Loop Trail. The second item is a vote on an ordinance to streamline permitting for outdoor dining patios. City staff said the proposed ordinance would provide Santa Cruz restaurants and cafes with the most streamlined path toward an outdoor dining patio in the state. As part of the proposed change, the permits would no longer need city council approval, and could be handled exclusively by city planning staff.
Compost toilet pilot could finally move forward: Approved in October 2022, the county’s compost toilet pilot project was meant to help some CZU fire victims clear septic hurdles in rebuilding their homes; however, insurance issues stalled the project. On Tuesday, the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors will vote on whether to expand eligibility for the program, which county staff says would help alleviate the insurance challenges. If approved, any existing single-family dwelling in the county with a permitted on-site wastewater treatment system, and any property with an active single-family dwelling permit application, will qualify to participate in the compost toilet program.
WEEKLY NEWS DIET
Local: Santa Cruz County Sheriff Jim Hart will retire at the end of 2024 after 36 years of service in county law enforcement. Who fills the open sheriff seat, arguably the single most powerful elected official in the county, will be decided by the board of supervisors. Hart has endorsed Undersheriff Christopher Clark to take the reins.
Golden State: When venture capital power players Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz announced last month that they’d be supporting former president Donald Trump’s campaign, there was a sense that Silicon Valley venture capitalists were swinging right. According to a new report from the San Francisco Chronicle, it’s more complicated than that.
National: Politico is reporting that something else is more complicated than it seems: a proposal to stop taxing tips, which has bipartisan support and has become a campaign issue for both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. Some economists believe that eliminating income taxes on tips earned by service employees could end up hurting those employees’ Medicare and Social Security benefits in the future.
ONE GREAT READ
How the Olympics warp time, by Dodai Stewart for The New York Times
U.S. sprinter Noah Lyles became the fastest man in the world by five-thousandths of a second, while his countryman Kenny Bednarek lost a gold medal in the 200 meters by less than two-tenths of a second, roughly the same time it takes to blink your eye. In the men’s 100-meter breaststroke, Italian swimmer Nicolò Martinenghi earned gold with 59.03 seconds. Silver and bronze were decided in the 0.02 seconds after that. The fourth-place finisher swam only 0.08 seconds slower than Martinenghi.
Glory at the Olympics is determined by margins of time difficult for the human brain to comprehend. As Times writer Dodai Stewart explains in this Sunday piece, the Olympics have a way of distorting our relationship to time, stretching out the hundredths and thousandths of seconds into planes upon which medals are won or lost.